


supernatural, coming undone

by natalunasans



Series: Ownership Enough [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Aromantic, Asexual Character, Brain Damage, Desperation, Dysfunctional Relationships, Episode Fix-It: s04e17-18 The End of Time, Everybody Lives, False Memories, Fix-It, Gen, Guilt, Hope, Hope vs. Despair, Hurt No Comfort, Kidnapping, Last of their kind, Loneliness, Long-Term Relationship(s), Lost friendship, M/M, Major Character Injury, Medical Experimentation, Medical Procedures, Moral Ambiguity, Morally Ambiguous Character, Non-Consensual, Nonbinary Character, Obsession, Other, Pain, Permanent Injury, Post-Episode: s04e17-e18 The End of Time, TARDIS is not amused, Time War Angst, Unhappy Ending, but i think for understandable reasons, but this is only the beginning of this AU, humans vs. gallifreyans, i will try... to fix you, or (from the master's perspective) a series of unfortunate events, so it's more like an unhappy beginning, the doctor is pretty creepy in this, you're just going to KEEP me?!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 10:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11033901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natalunasans/pseuds/natalunasans
Summary: “fix-it” ending for EoT:Wilf knocked four times and the Doctor lost a life, but didn’t regenerate.The Doctor didn’t leave to get their reward before dying… or did they?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is the beginning of my 10/S!M AU... there's lots of ways to imagine how they both could stay alive after EoT, i just wanted to do my own. 
> 
> took me long enough, too...  
> i'm posting this in summer of 2017 and my notes suggest it was begun for @doctorwhohurtcomfort in october 2015 with the following prompts: [side effects, “I’m here…”, ache, haunted, anger, shivering, waiting] 
> 
> (insert turtle emoji here)

The Master blasted Rassilon and the others back into oblivion, then collapsed on the marble floor with most of his life-force spent. There was no more crackling blue energy. Curled in on himself, he looked small, mortal, broken.

The Doctor ran to him, knelt, and began checking vital signs.

Before the Time War, the Doctor’s head had hummed with the hivemind -- the quotidian cloud computing of their advanced but mostly unadventurous people. But Gallifrey’s demise had left an echoing emptiness inside the Doctor’s mind.

Now, ever since Professor Yana had opened his fobwatch, that emptiness had been partially filled;  Doctor was able to hear the general tone of the Master’s thoughts, and he appeared to pick up theirs in the same way. There were still two mental voices on the psychic wavelength, so the Master wasn’t already dead. But how long could he survive in this condition? They just barely found faint pulses, and their own heartsbeat increased to a maddening pitch: there was yet hope.

If the Doctor linked telepathically with the Master, they risked using up the last of his energy, so they tried something almost equally dangerous. Placing their fingers on his temples and touching foreheads, they transferred a judicious amount of regeneration energy into the Master’s body along with the telepathic connection. They calculated what should be enough to safely make the link, without losing much time from their own current or next - and final - lifespan. A golden glow flickered between their skin and his.

The Master’s mind reached out to the Doctor's. Weaker and smaller than the Doctor had ever felt it, the Master's inner voice still clearly pleaded, “Let me go.”

“Master… I’m so, so sorry…” But now that the choice was theirs, the Doctor had no intention of obeying.

The unconscious Master’s life-force flickered brighter, as if it might begin to restore itself. But his physical condition was so unstable that the Doctor didn’t dare risk transporting him to the TARDIS, if she was even still where they had left her. The Master’s body temperature was dropping from shock, so they took off their coat and tucked it around him, hoping to buy a little time. If the Doctor was good at anything, it was last-ditch heroic efforts.

When Wilf knocked four times on the glass door of the control cabinet, the Doctor barely registered how much danger their human friend was in, but at the same time Wilf’s predicament gave them an idea.

If they wanted a repeat performance of “this time, everybody lives!”, they’d have to try to get one last run out of the so-called Immortality Gate. There was a chance it could use up the energy overflow without hurting anyone, and most importantly, it _had_ partially helped the Master earlier. The device would've been rather easier to repair if only they hadn't been obliged to shoot its controls just moments before, and they had to reset it back to its original medical repair function, rather than the cloning machine the Master had repurposed it as. The Doctor had to do even more dodgy DIY with the nuclear generator, along the lines of how they’d repaired the Vinvocci ship’s controls. Of course this time they weren’t just crashing a spaceship into Buckingham Palace if their plan went wrong, but instead risked nuking most of London. They hoped Wilf hadn't guessed the danger involved (especially when he’d just reproached them for vacillating between rescuing humanity or the Master), but one must never underestimate the intuition of some humans… especially the ones in Donna’s family.

The Doctor’s desperate expression must have startled Wilf into submission. Even as he pressed the buttons and moved the levers as they instructed, he frowned out at them from the glass cabinet. The Doctor recognised, though without entirely processing it, that same look of disappointment that they’d seen a few times from Donna when they’d just done something needlessly cruel). _How_ dare _this human compare the puny lives they were endangering with the galactic importance of even one Time Lord, let alone two?_ They wanted to rage at him, but realised they didn’t have enough mental energy to tell him off _and_ repair the device.

With the Doctor’s guidance, Wilf worked the controls and sent the remaining radiation energy in one great burst to power the Immortality Gate. Only then was he able to open the cabinet and get out.

The Gate had done its job, but just like before, it hadn’t had any impact on the Master’s life-force. The most urgent injuries had been repaired, but the Doctor realised with a jolt that the Master was still dying. There was only one thing for it… Knelt beside him, hearts racing, the Doctor was thinking just clearly enough to know that they weren’t thinking clearly at all. But there had really never been any doubt, and in that moment the Doctor took the decision.

This time it was a larger cloud of golden energy that poured out from the Doctor’s hands, a small galaxy that glowed and glittered as it swirled around the Master’s face and finally passed in through his nose and mouth.*

The Master’s body spasmed strongly enough to lift him off the floor for a fraction of a second. He fell back, shivered as if a ghost had passed through him (perhaps, in some sense, it had), then lay motionless again. The Doctor scanned him, using both the sonic screwdriver and telepathy, and found the Master’s life-force had stabilised. For the first time that night, the Doctor relaxed a little, although they felt as if they’d aged about a millennium.

They were only vaguely aware that Wilf still observed them in cautious silence.

Earlier that day (had it really been just a few hours ago?), the Doctor had confessed they were dying and joked tearily “Don’t you dare!” when Wilf talked of his own death. Yet here, after all that had transpired, both of them were still alive. Somehow they had cheated the odds. Wasn’t it obvious that in a moment like this anything was possible? The Doctor _had_ to extend this reprieve to the Master, too. To do otherwise would have been unthinkable.

Apparently, all of this was _not_ obvious to Wilfred Mott. “Doctor… what have you done?”

They looked up distractedly, raised an eyebrow at him, and kept on working. Would the old man begrudge them the life of their oldest friend? They hoped Wilf could understand that they were both following a common ideal of loyalty. Sure, the Doctor would risk the lives of innumerable humans for a chance to rescue the Master, but wouldn’t Wilf do the same to save _his_ family?

Is that what they considered the Master now? Family?… _Oh, I’ve lived too long._

The Doctor knelt on the floor, examining the Master with such concentration that they didn’t notice Wilf leaving, or even hear if he said goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *this is what it looks like:  
> http://halorvic.tumblr.com/post/41139274644/it-cant-end-like-this


	2. Chapter 2

The Doctor strapped the Master back onto the stretcher-chair. Badly shaken themself and unsure how fragile his condition still was, they were afraid to hurt him more by carrying him bodily. They wheeled him straight to where the TARDIS should have been, but she was gone. Wary of both the Master and the Council, she must have used the Hostile Action Displacement System to distance herself for her own safety. Guided by the TARDIS location feature on the sonic, the Doctor set off running as fast as they dared, trying not to flop the still-unconscious Master about too much. 

Out of breath and, after everything that had happened in that last twenty-four hours, near exhaustion, they at last reached the TARDIS a little way inside the forest at the other side of the grounds. At least she hadn’t gone far; perhaps she meant to keep an eye on them. 

The Doctor leant the stretcher against a tree and bent to check the Master: his body slumped in the restraints, but his breathing and heartsbeats remained mostly regular. They took his face in their hands to feel his mind, but even before connecting, they could hear only static - the white noise that meant pain had drowned out all conscious thought. The Doctor shuddered. They had got to get him inside and start whatever healing or treatment was possible. 

They snapped their fingers, but the TARDIS door did not open. They laid first one then both long-fingered hands on the door, saying via biodata, “It’s me! Open up?” 

Nothing. 

They scrabbled in their pockets for a TARDIS key, finally finding one. The lock spat it back out with audible disgust. 

They put their forehead to the door, an extra-deliberate link with the TARDIS mind.

_ Please, you’ve got to let me in!  _

_ I KEEP YOU SAFE _ , was the gist of her reply.  _ HE TRIED TO BREAK US BOTH. WHAT NEXT?!  _

_ I can’t ask you to forgive him, but please, I need you to help me! If I can't save him, I'll have lost everything…  _

_ NOT EVERYTHING.  _

_ I can’t bear to be all alone again…  _

_ YOU TRAVEL THE UNIVERSE WITH  _ _ ME _ _.  _

_ You know what I mean! _

The Doctor rattled the handle again, but it held firm. They kicked the door so hard that the rubber toe of one canvas boot came away dented and scuffed with blue paint residue. 

_ RESORTING TO VIOLENCE? YOU’RE NO DIFFERENT FROM HIM. _

The outer surface was sturdy; the TARDIS wouldn't register physical pain. Why then was she being so disagreeable?

The Doctor sank down near the door, a pile of long limbs doubled up like a folding ruler.

The TARDIS made a noise not unlike dematerialising, and the Doctor looked up in horror, thinking that she might just leave them there, stranded with the Master but unable to help him. Then they realised: The TARDIS, too, was crying out in frustration. 

_ Well if you’d just done what I asked in the first place, we wouldn’t even be quarrelling! _

First the top light went out, then the windows darkened. She had gone as silent and uncommunicative as an actual police box. The Doctor even tried her telephone, and found the line was dead.

They rubbed their face in desperation, trying to coax something more out of their own mind before it shut down. 

It was useless to seek human help. All the emergency services were occupied elsewhere dealing with the aftermath of what appeared to be mass hallucinations: the Master's escapade with the Immortality Gate, and the appearance and disappearance of a huge orange planet much too close to the Earth. Well, at least they wouldn't be found or arrested for a while. In any event, what the Master most needed was specific to Gallifreyan medical technology.

This train of thought reminded the Doctor to check on their patient again and they scrambled to their feet. The Master's face twitched as he murmured some half-words in Gallifreyan: even his dreams weren’t peaceful. He still shivered in his sleep; his body temperature was dropping again: unconscious and in shock, he might not have their species’ usual resistance to extremes.

They began to unstrap the Master from the stretcher, rubbing his limbs and chest where the restraints had been, hoping to restore circulation. They scanned him with the sonic. Fortunately, he had no broken bones or internal bleeding, but, unfortunately, his problems were more systemic… and possibly just as serious. They unbuckled the last strap and lifted him, mercifully still unconscious, only to notice that he weighed even less than his shape would indicate. The Master’s erratically draining life-force must have been burning up anything he fed it, finally consuming his own tissue.

The Doctor sat with their back up against the TARDIS door and held the Master, covering both of them with their coat again. His mind was still painful static, his body almost frail under the thick jumpers. 

_ Poor brilliant, stupid Master… still impulsive after all this time. But there must be a way to make him better, to save him from himself…  _

The Doctor turned up their own body temperature to make themself like a heating pad under him. Even after he started to warm up, they kept rubbing his arms and chest in small comforting gestures. They wondered again about trying a proper mindlink, see if they could take the edge off the pain. They felt along the side of the Master's face, all beard stubble and short unkempt hair, found a good contact point, and drew his head closer so it touched theirs. But the pounding noise, physical and psychic pain that kept the Master's mind walled off were exhaustingly difficult to navigate. Alone, the Doctor hadn't the resources to help, so they let his head slump back on their shoulder. 

The last time time the Doctor had held the Master in their arms, everything had ended wrong. He'd won, and they'd lost him. But, unlikely as it seemed, the universe had given them a second chance. This time he wasn't conscious to refuse help; this time they could fix everything. They were determined to get it right… or at least to make completely different mistakes this time. "I still forgive you," they whispered, or maybe only thought it in the general direction of his pain-blocked mind, before finally giving in to exhaustion and dozing off. 

The two slept for a while: four hearts beating, as usual, just slightly out of sync.


	3. Chapter 3

The sun was rising when the TARDIS door finally swung open behind the Doctor, letting the two Time Lords sprawl into the entryway. 

_ DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU. _

They scooped up the Master and scrambled, staggering, to the Zero Room. The TARDIS reluctantly signalled that she would do her best… one Time Lord body was, after all, very like another, and there were certain things she could repair, even it it wasn’t her Doctor and even if there hadn’t been a proper regeneration. 

They hadn’t used the Zero Room in ages, but found that the improbable physics of the place continued to work as intended. Still carrying the Master, the Doctor only hesitated a moment before letting themself fall backwards into a non-existent support. Trust was rewarded, as the two of them missed the ground and were caught by a thick cushion of  _ nothing _ , then floated gradually upwards until they reached the center of the cosy, dimly glowing space. The Doctor tested that they could count on the atmosphere to hold the Master up, and indeed he floated without them holding him. They stretched and tried to get their mind into the required intensity of focus.

The Doctor didn’t dare leave the Master alone in a restorative coma, partly because of the damage to his brains from the ‘drums’ and from the uncontrolled energy, and partly because they didn’t trust what the TARDIS would do without the Doctor themself providing the necessary connection between timeship and pilot. So while the atmospheric technology of the Zero Room simulated anaesthetic and began the medical work, the Doctor made a link and went in to rearrange and quiet what they could of the Master’s mind.

It was a struggle to keep their concentration up for this delicate work. Even unconscious, the Master had left up some barriers that were too strong for the Doctor to get past. What they could do was explore this… mindfield?... trying not to hit anything disastrous. Much of the Master’s mental storage was surprisingly neat, up until recently. Well, if you could even measure the time-period in question. Everything he’d rather not remember was filed away (not deleted: saved for future reference, but also not readily accessible). Everything since the TimeWar began, though, was what passed for chaos in the Master’s inner world. The Doctor glimpsed, in passing, some memories of what the Council had done to him, what they had used the Master for… But even if the Doctor hadn’t turned away in horror, much of what they found made little sense. 

One thing was clear: the terrible drumming noise had been implanted when the Master was re-loomed during the TimeWar, along with the illusion that it had been in his brain since his original childhood. Typical, really…  _ The Mindgames of Rassilon _ . Well, that certainly explained a lot. Even while the Gallifreyan leader was bragging about the clever plot, the Doctor had doubted. They'd have known if that sound had been there the Master’s whole life: the two of them had been inside each other’s minds so many times over the years that it would’ve been hard to miss. The Doctor wasn’t able to root-out the source of the ‘drums’, nor even modulate it, but they were able to tag the false memories accurately. Surely the Master would appreciate this.

As they worked, the Zero Room silently repaired the Doctor as well, knitting back together the cut and abraded skin on their face and hands, even reweaving the torn fabric of their jacket... Never let it be said that this TARDIS didn’t look after her symbiote. The ship tried to work on the Doctor’s mind as the Doctor was doing with the Master’s, but their hyperfocus and heightened alertness didn’t let the telepathic atmosphere very far in.

The Doctor worked intently, at first in silence but then humming odd old tunes that helped them concentrate. They found themself assessing the remaining damage, with no way to know how much of it was permanent. The Master had always been resilient, though, and surely he’d be right as rain before they knew it. They should probably make the most of the time he was unconscious.

It seemed ages to the Doctor’s flagging brain, but after only a few hours the Master let them know that they’d kept him asleep long enough. A tendril of his consciousness flickered tentatively across the link, shimmering in the periphery of their attention. Not yet strong enough to root out the Doctor’s control, the Master’s mind still lashed and hissed at the connection. 

_ What is this? Where…? _ And as soon as a bit more awareness returned,  _ Why am I alive? _

The Doctor withdrew slightly, more cautious than gentle, and tried unsuccessfully to answer objectively and without details. They sent a coldly clinical snapshot of the Master being partially repaired in the Immortality Gate. (They didn’t show him what happened just after, nor the discussion with the TARDIS). The multi-sensory memory of them carrying him into the Zero Room necessarily transmitted some of the fears and hopes they’d felt while stumbling through the labyrinthine corridors. When he seemed still confused, they replayed for him how he’d dealt with Rassilon and deleted Gallifrey from the Earth’s sky. The Doctor completely forgot to edit here; an unbearable amount of gratitude, both personal and on behalf of their favourite humans, accompanied this memory. 

In answer, the Master let the current full volume and intensity of what he’d been calling ‘the drums’ echo across the link. What the Doctor had heard in the wasteland was just a sample; the real thing at its worst was a cacophony of terrifying noise and unbearable pressure. The Doctor let go the Master’s temples and hurtled to the floor, grasping their own head in agony. 


	4. Chapter 4

Of course the Master’s presence in the Zero Room had been regulated by the Doctor’s mind, not his own. When the Master broke the link, the TARDIS dropped him unceremoniously. She’d been waiting for a chance, and took advantage of the Doctor’s distraction to take a fractional revenge on the Master for the events of That Year. He had tortured her Doctor and had made her his prisoner, his tool, his paradox machine… made her a part of things she would never have consented to. She’d have plenty of time to get back at him gradually, however long the Doctor’s mistaken experiment lasted.


	5. Chapter 5

The Doctor massaged their still-echoing head and intended to do several things at once, but managed precisely none of them. 

They needed to open their eyes and get up. 

They needed to find out if the Master was okay. Well… he mightn’t be anything like okay for a long time, but they needed to check that he hadn’t been further injured. He’d not fallen very far, but best to find out for sure. 

They needed to make sure he didn’t go wandering off within the TARDIS, although in his current condition that seemed unlikely.

They needed, and this felt like a priority, to know how the  _ hell _ he’d held that sound inside him all this time without going… well, any madder than he already was. 

Lastly, they needed to know  _ how much of him _ had survived. Was he still him? So far, his reactions seemed to fit his current regeneration’s…  _ slightly aggressive _ … personality, but with the extent of the brain damage still unknown, the Doctor worried there might not be enough of their old rival left to recognise.

The Master shouldn’t have been able to survive what the Council had put him through; no one should. And yet he had. He’d even taken over the Earth, twice, just like his old self --before the ‘drums’-- would have done. That whole universal domination lark was nothing to do with this particular pain and madness, the Doctor reasoned, and everything to do with… well, whyever the Master ever did anything. Which the Doctor tried awfully hard not to wonder about, as it was too painful to keep hoping for something they'd mostly convinced themself was impossible. What the Doctor marvelled at was how the Master had survived.


	6. Chapter 6

So here were the two last heirs of Gallifrey, again. The room was smaller and undecorated, and they’d both fallen onto a smooth surface without shards of skylight glass. But lying there in every imaginable kind of pain, on yet another hard cold floor, the Master struggled to fill in some more of the gaps in his memory of the previous… how long had it been? 

He looked over at the Doctor and hated them with the exactness of detail possible only in self-loathing, or between those who’ve known each other for half of forever. He hated their optimism, their peculiarly selfish generosity, their chaotic inventiveness, and  _ especially _ the way they had always (no matter through which pair of eyes) looked at him with that mixture of triumph, pity, guilt, grudging admiration, and… something else. Something that frightened him more than the Time War, more than Rassilon, more than the maddening noise… more than anything else in the universe. 

But this time the Doctor, still bowled over by just a brief glimpse of the ‘drums’, wasn’t looking back at him at all… 

Which was obviously a situation of which the Master should take immediate advantage. He’d attempt to make his escape from the Zero Room, not to leave the TARDIS until he’d got what he needed, but just to keep his captor on their toes.

Did the Doctor really think that an annoyance like a botched resurrection could stop The Master? Yes, he was broken (although less so than before trying again with the Gate, so, good thing after all that he’d commandeered it), but it was hardly the first time. The Doctor had usually been lucky with their bodies; some of them were funny looking, but they’d tended to last, and the Doctor had not been forced to go through quite as many regeneration cycles as the Master had. They probably still had… two lives left? Not that he’d been keeping track or anything. And the Doctor had never been stuck spending time in severely damaged shells like some of the ones  _ he _ had managed with. Compared to running out of lives and ending up a sort of scarred walking corpse (which luckily he only partially remembered), this… wasn't all that bad. 

He hadn’t looked in a mirror lately (a chance would be a nice thing!) but he’d got the impression he hadn’t regenerated (intuition told him it was, yet again, no longer possible). From the hands he gingerly held up to examine, and from the way his senses worked in general, he was pretty sure that this was still the ‘Saxon’ body. He could deal with that. He’d always found a way to land on his feet; after all, he was the Master of Survival. 

Now to get his strength back and start making the Doctor’s life miserable! The nostalgia cheered him up a little. Some things might even be easier to get away with now, if the Doctor saw him, let's be real, not as an equal but as a patient. 

There were many ways to take advantage of this situation, as soon as he felt strong enough. Actually, he was sure he could manipulate the Doctor psychologically, so even at his most unwell he might still have lots of options. And when he recovered, he’d find a way to steal their TARDIS again, or better, go back to wherever his own one had hidden itself while he was Professor Yana. His own TARDIS wouldn’t put up as much of a fight as the Doctor’s. His own TARDIS would show some loyalty… or else.

The Master rolled over onto one side, testing that he could indeed control his limbs. He pushed himself up on one elbow. Surely the Doctor’s TARDIS, vindictive old cow, was increasing the gravity, instead of lowering it as was customary in a Zero Room. He heaved himself into a sitting position and waited a little while for the room to re-arrange itself in his swirling vision. His head ached even more now that he held it upright, and he fought back nausea. On the second or third try, he finally got the nerve to roll onto his knees, tried to ignore the shooting pain, and shoved himself up onto his feet. The Master of Everything, Universally, stood for a moment, clutching his head again. He barely managed to take one step forward before he passed out.

**Author's Note:**

> huge thanks to @modernwizard, Kat, Rose, and @charamei for beta/reading


End file.
